


riverside confessions

by novoaa1



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Episode: s02e08 The Chase, F/F, all that sunshine/grumpy person dynamic stuff, but havign a major soft spot for ty lee which we love to see, calling people idiots, doin the damn thing, except ty lee, just basically what happens right after they get thrown into the river, mai being mad grumpy, mai hates everyone, ty lee being flirty, woodland creatures!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: “You can do better,” she grumbles back in a rare show of honesty, though her tone remains irritable enough to avoid bringing any more attention to it than necessary.“You say that abouteveryboy I like,” she pouts eventually, though there’s something more to her tone than just playful indignation. (Mai just can’t quite put her finger on exactly what it is.)“Because it’s true.”“Okay, so, tell me.”Mai frowns, finally turning and lifting her gaze to meet Ty Lee’s wide grey eyes. “What?”Or: Mai thinks Ty Lee's too good for someone like Sokka. Then again, she thinks Ty Lee's too good foreveryone. (Which she is.)
Relationships: Mai & Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 311





	riverside confessions

**Author's Note:**

> i really just pulled this out of my ass i dont know what to say
> 
> i rewatched atla like the rest of the world aaaand idk 
> 
> i thought of this cause i really liked all of mai and ty lees interactions (and when i was a kid i remember ty lee being one of my favorite characters to ever do it) so uh
> 
> let me know what you think?

By all accounts, Mai is already having ~~kind of~~ a shitty day. 

Azula keeps them up all night tracking the 12-year-old air-bending Avatar and his ragtag group of friends across the entire Earth Kingdom, cramped inside literal war machines that reek of petrol and burning smoke. When morning comes, they ditch the tanks, and they’re each provided one gargantuan quote-unquote “lizard” to call their own as they close in on the pre-pubescent hero squad of losers. 

(Mai thinks they qualify less as lizards and more as oversized Komodo dragons on guarana, but, whatever.)

Then Azula runs off in one direction after the 12-year-old, delegating Mai and Ty Lee to chase after the rest of those scrawny do-gooders like glorified lapdogs.

(Seriously, she knows she said she was bored, but this is getting ridiculous.

Not that she’d ever tell Azula that, of course.)

The little blind girl isn’t with them, which even Mai will admit is sort of strange—but it’s not like she cares _that_ much. Additionally, if what she’s seen thus far is any indication, that pint-sized earth-bending leprechaun packs a serious freaking punch (especially for someone her size). Mai’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and she doesn’t intend to start now.

So the elephantine Komodo dragons hunt their scent for a couple miles before they arrive at a clear-water river, where they can see the angry water-bending girl and her bug-eyed boomerang-swinging brother dragging themselves up onto the banks across the stream. 

Mai has to resist the urge to smirk when Boomerang Boy catches sight of them. His eyes widen comically like saucers and that abnormally large mouth gapes openly in their direction. An audible whimper that sounds vaguely like “K-Katara???” falls from his thin lips as the girl in question turns sharply with water at the ready to see what he’s on about this time. 

From there, it’s pretty straightforward: the hulking Komodo dragons do their part to get Mai and Ty Lee across the river and up onto the opposite bank where water-girl and her scared-shitless brother await, and they’re in business—throwing knives, chi-blocking; the usual. 

They get bested, both of them—thrown into the river as the two Water Tribe siblings take off, which is pretty annoying. Not the “them getting away part”—she actually doesn’t think it’s possible for her care any less about them (well, beyond the thorough reaming they’ll no doubt be on the receiving end of once they regroup with Azula). No, what she cares about is the fact that her clothes are soaking wet, her typically well-styled jet-black hair is going to end up drying itself all frizzy under the blazing sun, and there’s a good dozen of her mini-scythe-shaped blades scattered all across the foliage on the opposite bank. 

So, yea, all things considered, Mai doesn’t think she’s being completely unreasonable to say that it’s already shaping up to be ~~kind of~~ a shitty day. 

But of course, the universe just _loves_ being a massive pain in her ass, because moments later finds her and Ty Lee side-by-side pulling themselves out of the water and collapsing up on the blessedly dry grass, Mai groaning loudly at their misfortune even as an ever-chipper Ty Lee begins to wring the river water out of her dripping-wet braid, chirping: “Was it just me or was that guy kind of cute?”

Because, you know what, fine. Maybe that hare-brained Water Tribe boy isn’t exactly ugly, and _maybe_ some people would say that in a certain light, if you ignored the sheer idiocy and annoying voice and chronic inability to shut his truly massive trap, he could be called… cute. Or whatever. 

That doesn’t mean that he deserves someone like _Ty Lee_ , the literal embodiment of sunshine and butterflies and everything good in this world who wears choli tops everywhere and launches into the most insane aerobics at a moment’s notice and giggles like a fucking _dream_. It doesn’t mean that _he_ should get to see her mischievous grin and kiss her pretty pink lips and feel her cute little body against his in a way that’s more than “just friendship”—

Look, the point is—that noodle-armed screechy-voiced runt doesn’t deserve someone like Ty Lee. 

(Not that Mai does either. 

She does her best not to think about that most days.)

So, “You can do better,” she grumbles back in a rare show of honesty, though her tone remains irritable enough to avoid bringing any more attention to it than necessary. 

(Because Ty Lee will notice the truth underlying her words, the seldom-proffered sliver of vulnerability beneath her quintessential scowl. That girl has always been a hell of a lot more perceptive and knowledgable than anyone will ever get their heads out of their asses long enough to see, but Mai knows it’s there. 

Mai knows that hiding from Ty Lee is a painstaking task that only really reliably works about 15% of the time… And quite honestly, she often doesn’t see the point in bothering with it any longer.)

She expects Ty Lee to brush it off, to giggle and nudge her on the shoulder or maybe go off on some miscellaneous (but no less endearing) tangent about the circus or a lovesick boy who couldn’t leave her alone or the time she switched places for history exams with one of her six identical sisters in school.

(Mai always feigns indifference when Ty Lee talks about home or her past, choosing instead to clean her knives or pick inattentively at her nails or shut her eyes and lean back like she’s taking a nap… 

Though it’s a rather moot point to begin with, she thinks, because she’s fairly certain Ty Lee knows damn well how intently Mai hangs onto her every word. She’s sure Ty Lee can’t miss the way she mentally notes them down and files them away in an ever-growing imaginary cabinet with Ty Lee’s name written all over it in her neat cursive-y print, collecting pieces of this wonderful girl like ticket stubs and flower petals and paintings in a grossly sentimental scrapbook that holds no real intrinsic worth beyond the horribly childish affection she holds deep in her chest that only grows with every smile Ty Lee deigns to send her way.)

For better or for worse, Ty Lee doesn’t. Brush it off, that is. Instead, she turns to Mai where they kneel side by side on the banks of that clear-water stream, wide cloudy-grey eyes boring into the matted-down hair of Mai’s sopping-wet scalp (solely because Mai refuses to lift her chin and meet her gaze) as if looking for something—though for what, Mai doesn’t have the faintest clue. 

“You say that about _every_ boy I like,” she pouts eventually, though there’s something more to her tone than just playful indignation. (Mai just can’t quite put her finger on exactly what it is.)

“Because it’s true. You deserve better.”

“Okay, so, tell me.”

Mai frowns, finally turning and lifting her gaze to meet Ty Lee’s wide grey eyes. “What?”

Ty Lee pouts again, a pleading look in her eye (the kind Mai can’t resist, and dammit, but that little minx knows it). “I wanna know what ‘better’ means. Does that mean, like, Commander Zhao?”

Mai rolls her eyes, wringing out one side of her hair with a series of hard twists. “Too old. Plus, he’s gross.”

“Katara?”

Mai scrunches her nose. “The Water Tribe girl?”

Ty Lee hums. “Mhm!”

“No.”

“Azula?”

“ _Definitely_ no.”

“You?”

Mai blanches, cheeks flooding with heat. She’s sure she’s just heard incorrectly, sure that there’s no way that Ty Lee really just blurted out _her_. “ _What?_ ” 

Ty Lee tilts her head curiously, watching Mai with an intent grey-eyed gaze. “What?”

Mai coughs, struggling to hold Ty Lee’s gaze even as her heartbeat hammers in her chest. “That—You— _What?!_ ” 

“Sometimes I think about what it’d be like to kiss you,” Ty Lee replies airily with an inconsequential shrug, like they’re discussing the weather or something equally as arbitrary, like she didn’t just say— “Plus, we already cuddle a lot and sleep in the same bed and I _never_ cuddle with Azula or sleep in the same bed as she does… And also, you’re like the prettiest, most badass girl in the whole world! Ya know?"

Mai opens and closes her mouth uselessly, gaping obscenely like a land-borne fish—Spirits help her, but she has no idea what to say here, can’t even begin to comprehend the complete _bomb_ Ty Lee’s just dropped in her lap—

“Ooh! Mai! Did you see that?” Ty Lee is suddenly on her feet, pointing ecstatically up ahead at the woods with an ear-splitting grin upon her pretty features. (Mai doesn’t bother looking, just remains frozen in absolute shock at the river bank.) “I think it’s a raccoon-crow! I’ve never seen one before in real life, I—Oh, no, it’s leaving! Please come back!” She takes off after it, then, bounding into the woods with all the grace of a deer, pleading audibly all the while for the poor creature to return. 

And still, Mai doesn’t move, just watches silent and open-mouthed as the bright-pink girl disappears in the thicket of trees in a matter of moments. She knows there’s no point in telling Ty Lee to leave it be, knows that once Ty Lee sets her sights on something it's absolutely impossible to deter her from the task at hand… not to mention, she’s still not quite sure she _can_ move right now, her brain still struggling profoundly to understand what’s just occurred. 

She collapses forwards with a groan before flipping herself (drenched clothing and all) onto her back, staring unseeingly at the wispy clouds overhead and feeling her lips curl at the edges up into something that dangerously resembles a smile. She knows Ty Lee will return soon enough, and until then, she has a freaking crap-ton of things to think about. 

Namely: _Did Ty Lee really say she wants to kiss me?_

🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂 🜂

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? comments? concerns?🧐
> 
> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just search @ultralightdumbass in case the link doesnt work to talk to me there cause i'm not on here all that often!)


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